TITLE: Blood and Roses

RATING: T

SPOILERS: The Cure

SUMMARY: The team is involved in a case where someone is sending killer flowers while Olivia battles her past and Peter is there to help.

DISCLAIMER: Characters not mine, blah blah blah, don't sue me, blah blah blah


I need your love but it comes out wrong
I try to live but I don't belong
I close my eyes and I see
Blood and roses

-The Smithereens


"Oh, good morning Agent Dunham!" Walter exclaimed as Olivia quietly walked into the lab.

It was early morning and Olivia had hoped she could just sneak in to grab her notes in her office and then head back out without seeing anyone.
But Walter, Peter, and Astrid apparently wanted to get a head-start on their lab work for the day as they were all busy at their stations.

"What's with the sun glasses?" Peter asked Olivia as he began prepping the Petri dishes for his father. "Have a little too much fun last night?"

Olivia really wished he hadn't noticed. "Um, I...I'm just gonna grab some of my notes and go," she said sheepishly as she pointed to her office. "I've got a busy day."

"Wow, hangover that bad, huh? No quick comeback? Not even a smile?" Peter joked.

When Olivia started to quietly walk to her office door without saying anything further, Peter realized something was wrong.
He wasn't the only one that noticed.

"What's with her?" Astrid asked after Olivia was out of ear-shot.

"Maybe she needs some of my special strawberry concoction to cheer her up," Walter suggested as he turned off the blender and poured the
thick pink liquid into a tall glass. After taking a huge gulp of the mixture, he said "I know it makes me happy!"

Peter smiled. "It makes you happy because you lace it with..."

"Nevermind, son!" Walter cut in quickly.

Gene the Cow let out a long "mooooo" after hearing Walter shout.

Olivia came back into the lab carrying a large stack of folders and papers. She hurried towards the front door and was going to leave without saying goodbye.

"Need some help with that?" Peter asked as he noticed she was having trouble opening the door with her arms full. Before he reached her, the top stack of
folders fell out of her grasp and onto the floor. She reached down to pick them up, but in doing so she accidently dropped the rest of the stack. Papers were
now scattered everywhere.

"Here, let me help you," Peter knelt down and started picking up the mess. Olivia bent down too, a little too fast. Her sunglasses shifted down on her face and
hung off the tip of her nose, exposing her eyes.

"What the hell...?" Peter instantly stopped what he was doing when he saw what Olivia had been hiding.

Olivia stood up and pushed her sunglasses back to their rightful position. But Peter was quick to grab them off her face, revealing a badly bruised swollen black eye.

"'Livia, what happened? Who did this to you?" Peter asked with concern.

Astrid and Walter came over to listen in on the conversation when they saw her battered face.

"I'm fine. It's nothing," Olivia quickly replied.

"Oh my. Does it hurt? I can give you something for the pain," Walter said.

"I have to go," Olivia grabbed her papers, opened the front door, and started walking down the hallway.

"Wait!" Peter ran after her. He gently grabbed her arm. "Olivia..."

He said her name so tenderly that she had to stop; she couldn't keep walking away. She knew he wasn't going to let this go.

"Okay, fine, I'll tell you," Olivia relented.

Peter let go of her arm and relaxed a little, waiting for her response.

"It's nothing, really. I got called out last night to help on a drug bust. They needed extra backup. So we had them surrounded, but one got away.
I went after him, tackled him to the ground. But he wouldn't give up without a fight. My head got in the way of his fist. I won though...eventually."

Peter squinted his eyes at her. She definitely had on a poker face. He knew her poker face now; she had it on when they first met. He somehow knew
not to push the matter any further, though. At least for now.

"You sure you're alright?"

"Yeah," Olivia stated simply. "Look, I'll see you later, okay? I'll call you when I'm ready to question some of these suspects."
She gestured her head down to the stack of papers she held and turned to walk away.

Peter was left standing in the hallway with his arms crossed, watching her leave and wondering what really happened to her.


"Peter Bishop," Peter said into his cell phone after flipping it open.

"It's Broyles. I've been trying to contact Dunham but she's been unreachable. Do you know where she is?"

"I saw her earlier this morning in the lab, but she left rather quickly. She said she was going to work on the suspect list."

"Well if you see her, tell her there's been another incident. I'm having the body shipped to the lab. It should be there shortly. We need to know cause of death."

"You think it's the same M.O.?" Peter asked.

"We believe it's related. There were a dozen red roses next to this victim, just like the first. So your father still thinks that the roses were sprayed with a bio-weapon?"

"Yes. Actually, he's got it narrowed down to a toxin called Sarin which was used in World War II and most recently stockpiled in Iraq. It's odorless but deadly when inhaled.
Ironically, this stuff was outlawed in 1993 by the Chemical Weapons Convention. Walter thinks that someone still has access and is altering a version of the original
compound to make it even stronger."

"Stay on it. Keep me informed. And if you find Dunham, let her know I need to speak with her."

"Yes sir..." Peter paused, wanting to ask him more about the drug bust Olivia mentioned. He decided he should broach the subject tactfully.
"I'm sure you want to speak to her...I mean, to check up on her...with what she went through last night on the drug bust."

"Drug bust?" Broyles asked in surprise.

"You didn't have her going out on a drug bust last night?" Peter's heart sank. She lied to him, again.

"No. What's going on Bishop?"

"I'm not sure. Just that she has a nasty black eye and said that some guy fought her during a drug raid."

"She okay?"

"Physically, she will be. But obviously she's not telling the whole truth."

"Watch over her, see what you can find out." Broyles hung up the phone.